Category: Marketing Automation

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If you’re a fan of HubSpot’s Inbound Marketing Methodology, you probably understand the importance of customer success. In fact, 70% of businesses with growing revenue prioritize customer success as “very important.” So, if you want your business to succeed you must make sure your customers do, too.
By doing so, you can stack the odds in your favor, ensuring the leads you’re passing to your sales team are a good fit for your business through benefit segmentation. In this post, we’ll go over what benefit segmentation is, why you should use it, and where it can be seen in the real world.

Why should you do benefit segmentation?
Benefit segmentation will help you gain a better understanding of the different needs of your customer base in addition to the following:
1. Benefit segmentation makes it easier for sales reps to convert leads into customers.
That’s because your marketing campaigns will attract customers who are better suited for your product or service. Since the campaigns are targeted to the people who need your business the most, your sales team should have an easier time closing deals.
2. Marketers and salespeople can use benefit segmentation to engage customers.
By identifying the key value that your business provides, your team will create more compelling marketing campaigns and sales pitches. They’ll know exactly how to differentiate your product or service to make it attractive to your target audience.
3. Benefit segmentation improves customer retention.
Converting leads that are a good fit for your organization will decrease your churn rate over time. Customers will be happy your product or service is fulfilling their needs and will be less likely to shop with your competitors.
Now that we understand what benefit segmentation is and why you should use it, let’s take a look at some real examples where this marketing technique helped businesses attract and close leads.
Benefit Segmentation Examples
1. Samsung

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The cell phone has become one of the most fundamental products of modern technology. Almost everyone has a cell phone to get them through their day-to-day tasks. But, depending on who you are, how old you are, and where you’re from, your cell phone needs may differ dramatically from the next customer. Most of us need a cell phone, but often for a different reason. So, how do phone companies manage to fulfill these customer needs?
Samsung uses benefit segmentation to personalize ads for different target audiences. In the cell phone industry, age is a major determining factor of customer needs. As customers get older, what they need from their cell phone changes. It goes from fun features like cameras and apps to more practical benefits like battery life and security.
We can see this play out in the two advertisements pictured. The first one is aimed at a youthful audience and inspires them to “Do bigger things.” The phone comes with two cameras and lets the user draw on images using the included stylist.

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Compare this to the next ad where Samsung focuses on the practicality of the phone. Its tagline, “Designed for humans,” lets the reader know the phone is user-friendly and easy to set up. The phone is designed for optimal performance so that it never slows down no matter how many apps are running at once. This is particularly useful for an audience that may have a busy professional schedule and is working on multiple tasks at once.
Highlights:

Samsung used it’s “Do bigger things” campaign to attract a younger audience by reeling them in with sleek new camera features.
Conversely, the company was able to attract older users who may not be as tech or gear savvy with the tagline “Designed for humans,” implying the phone is user-friendly for all.

2. Ford

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Car companies often use benefit segmentation to position different types of vehicles. For example, we can look at Ford to see the difference in advertisement between its Ford Fusion and F-150 models.
The Ford Fusion is a practical, four-door sedan that’s described as “sophisticated” and “cool.” Ford recognizes that people who are interested in this car will value its style in addition to its performance and price. The company highlights this by using vibrant colors in its advertisement to compliment the car’s eye-popping design.
Now, compare that image to the image of the Ford F-150 below. The F-150 is a work truck designed for people who need a powerful, durable vehicle. Customers who are interested in the F-150 would value the truck’s impressive towing capacity and ability to navigate difficult terrain. That’s why the image below shows the truck towing a large piece of equipment with a tagline of “Built Ford Tough.”

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Highlights:

Ford marketed the Fusion sedan to users who were more interested in having a practical, but stylish car to get around town.
For the F-150, Ford used it’s “Built Ford Tough” campaign featuring the rugged outdoors to attract buyers looking for a durable, all-terrain truck that could handle the toughest jobs.

3. Airbnb

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Airbnb’s market segmentation is interesting because it has to account for two main target audiences: hosts and guests. Not only does the company have to find customers to book the rooms, but they must also attract welcoming hosts with desirable living spaces. This forces Airbnb to perform benefit segmentation to create ads that appeal to both guests and hosts.
In the example above, we can see how Airbnb uses benefit segmentation to attract hosts in New York City. New Yorkers have a lot of pride for their city and value companies sharing that passion. So, Airbnb created these subway ads to educate New Yorkers on why Airbnb is good for local business owners as well as community development.
We can compare that educational message to the inspirational one below. This ad is aimed at potential guests who are planning a future trip but haven’t made concrete travel plans. Airbnb capitalizes on this opportunity by creating a message that embraces uncertainty. Rather than pointing to a specific location, Airbnb makes the destination irrelevant and instead focuses on how the company will help, no matter where you go. This makes Airbnb look more trustworthy to customers who may be nervous about making a major financial decision.

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Highlights:

To attract NYC hosts to use their service, Airbnb embarked on a campaign that tapped into the pride New Yorkers have for their city and local businesses.
For guests, Airbnb established themselves as a trustworthy accommodation option – no matter where they decided to crash – by using the uncertainty of the audience’s destination to their advantage.

4. Nike

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Nike offers a wide range of products to a variety of target audiences. It needs to use benefit segmentation to develop different marketing campaigns that appeal to each group of customers. The most notable example we can pull from Nike is its ads featuring tennis superstar, Serena Williams.
These ads are aimed at Nike’s female target audience, particularly at its youthful demographic. Nike understands that these customers value the athletic confidence they experience when wearing Nike products. That’s because Nike’s apparel is not only stylish but designed for elite performance. The company uses the tennis phenom, Serena Williams, as an icon to demonstrate how this added confidence can improve your athletic ability.
Highlights:

Nike expertly leveraged it’s reputation for creating high-performance gear by using tennis star Serena Williams.
Additionally the brand was able to tap into youthful nostalgia and appeal to female buyers by using images of Williams as a youth to inspire their audience to greatness.

5. Hulu

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Amidst the “cord-cutting” phenomenon, Hulu has been able to position itself as a viable alternative to cable TV. Hulu’s users value convenience and efficiency and don’t want to spend money paying for television channels they never watch. So, the company has created an ad campaign that explains how Hulu users can save money while maintaining access to their favorite content.
In the ad above, we see how benefit segmentation influenced Hulu’s marketing campaign. For example, the copy highlights how users can view “current episodes” and “hit movies.” Since many cord-cutters worry about losing access to new content, this lets users know that Hulu’s content is updated so they’ll never miss a recent episode. That’s incredibly important for people who follow series like Game of Thrones, where it’s vital to watch the episode as soon as it airs.
Highlights:

Hulu’s ad campaign assures potential cord-cutters they won’t miss current episodes of their favorite shows.
Hulu found what was most important to their customers (missing their favorite shows) and then tailored their messaging to address their needs.

The Advantage of Using Benefit Segmentation
With benefit segmentation, you can organize your customers and leads based on the value you provide them. This ensures you’re attracting customers who will develop a strong relationship with your business over time. <>By pursuing these customers, your organization will improve lead acquisition and ensure customer success.
This article was originally published June 3, 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

No matter what you do, in today’s world, it can be incredibly hard to unplug. We see this every year with our State of Remote Work report. In our most recent report, 27% of respondents shared that not being able to unplug was their biggest challenge.
For business owners, this can be even more difficult as so many parts of a business are managed online. But, that doesn’t mean you actually need to be “on” all of the time, and in fact, you might not be doing yourself or your business any favors if you are.
Our own CEO, Joel Gascoigne, has written about his experience with burnout, and he’s not alone, one study showed it affects more than half of small business owners. While it can be tempting to push yourself forward to see how much more you can do, ultimately you won’t be helping your staff, your customers, or your brand by running yourself into the ground.
If you’re seeking a bit more balance while simultaneously wanting to continue growing your business, this article is for you.
Determine Your Must-Dos
The first and arguably most challenging task is getting clear on what you need to do, versus what someone else could do or what you could eliminate from your plate altogether.
Stephen Covey, the author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, created a matrix just for this purpose: Outline what is urgent and not urgent and what is important and not important. Both boxes in the top row are tasks you should continue doing and the bottom row are the tasks to either delegate or eliminate entirely.
Created by Stephen Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, the 4 Quadrants Time Management Strategy helps you to prioritize what’s on your plate. (Source)Note that what’s important will look different for everyone. While bookkeeping, for example, is urgent—there’s not a lot of wiggle room in those tax deadlines—some business owners find it important to do it themselves, while others might find it far more valuable to delegate the task to a professional. Placing that in the “urgent but not important” category, then, allows more time for important (for you to do) responsibilities.
Learn to Delegate
Kevin Xu, a serial entrepreneur and the CEO of MEBO International and Skingenix, Inc., wrote, “If everything in your company depends on you, it can only grow as large as your personal capacity allows.” If your aim is to grow or expand, then doing everything yourself is not the answer. And if your aim is more balance, then either delegating or eliminating are your best bets.
Using your matrix above, consider who on your team might have the skills for the boxes in the “not important” (for you to do) boxes. If you are a company of one you could work with freelancers rather than grow your team. For example, you could have someone else write your social media posts and upload them into Buffer’s scheduling tool, where you can approve them before they go live. You save time writing and posting, while still having the final say.
Start by dipping your toe into the water of delegation by picking the thing you feel the least protective of. Assign it out, give others the chance to shine, and gain some of your own time back.
Set Expectations of When You’ll be on and Off
If you’re consistently taking late-night calls and answering emails as soon as they come in, then people come to expect that you’re available. Instead, set expectations for when you’re working, especially if you work across time zones or in an industry like social media that never sleeps.
Here at Buffer, we are a fully distributed team with teammates based around the world, meaning that oftentimes our working hours don’t align with each other. We’re clear with each other about when we’re each working, and we use that staggered schedule to our advantage, tackling projects asynchronously when others are sleeping.
A key, however, to setting expectations is to publicize them. For our team, our working hours are all in our Slack profiles. If your small business only responds to customer inquiries on social media from 7 am – 7 pm, note that in your account’s bio. If you’re giving your entire team a week off over the holiday, put up a message on your website and social media accounts making that clear. We close Buffer over the end of the year every year and share that information on our social profiles. Once you set that expectation externally, you don’t have the pressure of responding immediately, and people know when to expect a response.

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A few more tips from our community for avoiding burnout.
Schedule Everything
Now that you’ve sat with the idea of delegation, handed over a few responsibilities, and set expectations for when you’ll be off, it’s important to use your newfound time wisely.
According to 24 entrepreneurs, scheduling personal events in their calendar in addition to their work events is their number one tip for work-life balance. While adding a time block for dinner with your family every night or creating a recurring date night may feel odd at first, it’s a great way to protect the time you’ve carved out. Plus, you’ll be able to see everything in one place and spot if you’ve overcommitted on any given week.
As Covey once put it, “The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.”
What would you add to this list for other folks looking for more balance? Reach out to let us know!

​ https://preview.redd.it/6kz7tzalr9481.jpg?width=826&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=458b27b5b17bc8a8f6d086f9276b076e9473e7f4 Email Marketing in Nigeria is easy with DMTCA as we will help your business to manage email marketing campaigns, creating and sending email newsletters that engage and convert. We also create tailored marketing campaigns for each segment of your audience to help advertise the products and services efficiently.
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Are you getting the best return on your email marketing efforts? Emails are one of the most effective digital marketing strategies for brands. But if you want to make the most of them, you need to know what’s working, what’s not, and what your overall return on investment (ROI) is. Not only will this help…
The post How to Calculate Email Marketing ROI appeared first on Benchmark Email.

I have a service called mass dms which does exactly what the name suggests: send a large number of dms to potential customers. Hmu if you’re interested
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We have seen the chaos and the futile time put into daily marketing project task scheduling, resource allocation, and scoping. To counter these problems and keep your focus on the big picture we are soon launching Digitty: a virtual assistant to bring in the zen mode for Marketing agencies and managers and to ensure project success for project success rates of 95% or higher⚡. Our solution adds AI capabilities to existing project management tools for the digital industry. Rethink project management as you know it. We just put up our pre-launch page on Product Hunt and would love to get your feedback and food be delighted if you want to test our product. Also, hit the subscribe button to know when we are launching 🚀
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In marketing, offers are the gateways to lead generation. Without them, site visitors have no way of getting converted into leads. They are also a critical tool for nurturing existing leads into a position that makes them more sales-ready. But gosh, isn’t the word ‘offer’ so utterly vague and abstract? What the heck is a marketing offer, and what are the qualities of a good one?
Because we see so many marketers get tripped up on this concept, let’s discuss exactly what a marketing offer can be, highlight the characteristics of an effective offer, and explain how you can start using them the right way.

What an Offer Isn’t

Sometimes the best way to explain what something is, is to first identify what it isn’t. Unfortunately, many of the things marketers sometimes consider to be marketing offers aren’t actually offers at all. First, let’s clarify. What marketers should classify as an offer is something of value that a website visitor must complete a form to get access to. And yeah, sure you can put just about anything behind a form. But there are certain things that, when put behind a form, just won’t contribute much of anything for your lead gen or lead nurturing initiatives. We’re not saying you shouldn’t bother with these types of content. What we’re saying is that you shouldn’t put them behind forms or rely on them to effectively generate and nurture leads.
Here are some great examples of things you should never consider to be a marketing offer:

‘Contact Us!’: Okay, so you can put this one behind a form if it’s one that allows site visitors to email you. But this will never bring in leads as effectively as true offers will.

Product-Centric Content: We’re talking brochures, product videos, etc. Yes, these can be great tools to introduce to leads who are close to making a purchasing decision, but there’s no reason they should be gated behind a form. You should want your site visitors to be able to access this type of content freely and frictionlessly. And if site visitors are looking at this type of content, they’re likely already in your sales funnel and much closer to making a purchasing decision.

Customer Case Studies: Just like product-centric content, customer case studies are likely something you want to make it very easy for visitors to access. Making a visitor or lead fill out a form is unnecessary.

Fact Sheets: Simply put, fact sheets and other company-focused content is not lead generation material.

Press Releases: Putting a press release behind a CTA or form will lower your chances of getting the word out, defeating their main purpose.

What an Offer Is

The good news is, you have quite a few great options at your disposal in terms of the types of offers you can, well, offer your target audience. These include but are not limited to:

Ebooks and Guides: Providing visitors with guides or ebooks that help them solve a problem, or are tailored to their interests will help establish you (or your brand) as an authority on the topic.

Discounts and Promotions: Visitors to your website might be more inclined to hand over their information if it means they get a discount or promotion code in exchange.

Webinars and Courses: Another way to establish yourself as an authority on a certain topic is to offer a webinar or course. When visitors register, you’ll get their information and they’ll learn more about a topic or gain a skill in return.

Industry Case Studies and Research: Industry-specific reports and research can be a great incentive for prospects to give their contact information. You offer value by doing the research for them, making it readily available, and providing it for free.

Membership or Loyalty Programs: These programs provide potential customers with a sense of exclusivity — access to rewards and perks not offered to non-members.

Templates: Templates provide an easy way for prospects to create their own documents without having to start them from scratch. Some common template options you’re probably familiar with are resumes, proposals, and email.

Free Tools: Free tools such as HubSpot’s Website Grader are a great way to have site visitors test your products without having to make a purchase.

Free Trials: Similarly to free tools, free trials allow visitors to your site to test your services out risk-free.

Product Demos and Consultations: If a potential client is on the fence about using your services, offering a consultation or demonstration might help reel them in. Not only will you get their contact information when they sign up, but they’ll learn more about how your product or service can help them.

What makes a good marketing offer?
While the types of offers we mentioned above are all great options for marketing offers, there are a number of qualities that an offer should possess in order for it to be effective for lead generation and nurturing. Offers should:
1. Be High Quality and Valuable to Your Target Audience
The important thing to remember is that, if you’re requiring a site visitor to complete a form in order to obtain your offer, the value of that offer needs to be compelling enough to convince those visitors to do so. People don’t like to give up their contact information freely, and your lead-capture form will create some friction. So if you start putting mediocre, low-value offers behind your forms, your business will eventually be known for having a poor user experience and subpar offerings, seriously hurting your lead generation and nurturing goals.
In the simplest sense, an offer is valuable if it addresses the problems, needs, and interests of your target audience. This value could also mean different things for offers used in different stages of the sales process. For example, an offer you’re promoting to generate net new leads at the top of your funnel (like, say, an educational ebook or a webinar) is likely valuable because it educates your prospects and fulfills a need. A free product trial, on the other hand, may not be as educational in nature, but it’s still a very valuable offer for existing leads you’re trying to nurture and who are closer to making a purchasing decision.
2. Align With Your Business and the Products or Services You Offer
A great marketing offer complements the products and services your business sells. That educational ebook is probably not very focused on how awesome your products and services are, but it should address concepts that align with your paid offerings.
For example, HubSpot sells inbound marketing software, so our offers focus on helping prospects with their marketing challenges. These offers help set HubSpot apart as an industry thought leader and educate prospects about the problems our software helps to solve.
3. Be Tailored to the Right Buyer Persona at the Right Time
As we hinted at before, a truly great marketing offer also takes into account a person’s point in the sales process as well as that buyer persona’s specific interests and needs. How this really comes into play is in lead nurturing campaigns and how you decide which calls-to-action (CTAs) to place where on your website.

If you use lead management software, you can easily collect key pieces of information (AKA lead intelligence) about your prospects that will help you segment your leads into nurturing campaigns based on their buyer persona, their point in the sales process, and what you can determine their interests are based on their activity on your website. Sending them offers that appeal to those interests as well as how close they are to making a purchasing decision can help you better qualify a lead before they get handed off to sales.
For example, if your business is in plumbing and a first-time visitor comes to your site and downloads an ebook on how to unclog a minor plumbing backup, you might enter them into a lead nurturing campaign that then invites them to also attend a webinar about common plumbing problems and how to fix them. As they move further through the sales cycle, you could then offer them a coupon that discounts your services for that (apparently) not-so-minor drain problem they’re having.
The same concept applies to how you choose which calls-to-action should be placed on different pages of your website. For example, if you conduct analysis that shows that your blog is typically how new visitors find you (whether through social media, search engines, or another referrer), you can infer that many people who land on your blog are first-time visitors to your website. Therefore, on your blog, you should probably place CTAs for offers that appeal to people who are just entering the top of your funnel and know little about your company (like an educational webinar, ebook, or kit, for example).
On the other hand, a visitor on something like a product page probably indicates they are much closer to a purchasing decision. What might be more valuable to those types of visitors is a CTA for a free product trial, or a demo if you’re a software vendor.
How to Use Marketing Offers
Now that you have a much clearer understanding of what makes a good marketing offer (and what doesn’t), let’s dive into some offer best practices. After all, you can create a ton of great offers, but if you’re not using them to your best advantage, they’re not going to do much good to generate and nurture leads.
1. Create multiple types of targeted offers.
First things first. With all that talk about targeting and segmenting the right offers to the right buyer persona (at the right time), you can probably guess that what all that translates to is a need for a variety of offers. Building up an arsenal of offers can be a big lift, but it can mean the difference between good results and awesome results.
Create a spreadsheet that allows you to list the offers you currently have, highlight the holes in your group of offers ( what topic are you missing an offer for that your audience would appreciate?), and map offers to the various points in your business’ sales process. Then slowly work through your offer to-do list, gradually filling in those gaps.
2. Put offers behind lead-capture forms.
If offers are the gateways to lead generation, lead-capture forms (AKA conversion forms) are the gateways to your offers. Always place your offers on landing pages, gated by forms. This allows you to collect information that helps you qualify a new or reconverting lead and track what they’ve downloaded from you throughout the sales cycle.
3. Create calls-to-action, and place them appropriately.
We mentioned this above, but it’s an important one. Create CTAs for each of your offers, and align them with the pages on your website. If you’re that plumber we mentioned and you just wrote a blog post about the best and worst products to unclog a drain, you might place a CTA for your free guide to the best plumbing products on the market.. Once you have created awesome-looking CTA buttons for your site and you’re moving onto ninja status, you can also test different versions of your CTAs to determine which ones generate the best click-through rate.
4. Create content around your offers.
Taking things a step further, create content specifically around your new offers to help launch and promote them. If you just created that ‘Best Plumbing Products’ guide, write a blog article that highlights the top 5 products mentioned in the guide and couple that with your CTA, explaining that readers can learn more by downloading the new guide. Excerpts make for easy blog content, so you’ll be killing two birds with one stone!
Video is also a powerful tool to keep in your marketing toolbox. You could create short, how-to videos explaining to viewers how to fix common plumbing issues. Using a CTA, prompt them to subscribe to your newsletter or YouTube channel for more content and resources.
5. Promote your offers on social media.
The promotion of your offers shouldn’t be limited to just your website. Use social media as a promotional vehicle by sharing links to the landing pages for your offers and briefly explaining their value in your tweets, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn posts. Spend some time to build your social media reach so you can expose your offers to as large an audience as possible.
6. Entice potential customers with contests.
A great way to leverage social media exposure is through contests. For example, surf brand Billabong ran a contest to win a trip for two to Baja, Mexico. To enter, contestants must enter their contact info into a form. You could run a promotion for free services or products that would be of interest to your target audience in exchange for them completing a form.

Other contests may ask users to tag a friend under the contest’s post, which helps build brand awareness and acts as free promotion through word of mouth.
7. Use them in email marketing and lead nurturing.
As we mentioned above, offers are critical to a business’ lead nurturing efforts, but you can also promote them using general email marketing as dedicated sends. Promote your new offer in a dedicated email send that only highlights that one offer and conveys its value. If it’s a very general offer that every buyer persona in your audience would enjoy regardless of their point in the sales cycle, send it to your entire list. If it’s a more targeted offer, segment your list, and send it only to the people to whom it will appeal.
8. Align offers with prospects’ stage in the sales process.
This is another one we’ve already talked about, but it’s worth emphasizing. Aligning the offers you use in your lead nurturing campaigns and in the CTAs on your website with a prospect’s likely position in the sales cycle will not only help to better qualify a lead, but it may also shorten the sales cycle, as a prospect will be much closer to a purchasing decision with a ton of knowledge about your business before he/she even talks to a sales person.
9. Track performance and update strategy as needed.
Measure the performance of your offers. This will help you identify which types and topics of offers are successful in generating leads and customers so you can create more offers around those topics or in those formats, helping you become a much more effective marketer. Do your prospects prefer webinars to ebooks? Do they only care about certain topics that your offers are addressing? Use what you know to improve your lead generation and lead nurturing efforts in the future.
Using Offers in Your Marketing
How many offers are in your back pocket? How much do they factor into your business’ lead generation and nurturing efforts?
Offers are an invaluable tool for generating leads. Use them wisely and watch your business reap the benefits.
 
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in February, 2012 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
 

When you’re first starting a business, branding is likely the last thing on your mind. After all, it’s hard to sit down and flip through fonts when you’re still trying to figure out who your customers are (and where to find them).
Plus, even if you made creating a brand identity a priority, in the beginning, a change in business plans might have made your initial branding strategy obsolete. Whether your branding design efforts started (and ended) with a logo jotted down on a napkin, or you whiteboarded your way through the complete branding process — from brand values to logo variations — somewhere along the way things stopped working.

However you got here, you’re not happy. Fortunately, rebranding is not uncommon — many major brands, ranging from Dunkin’ Donuts to Uber, have successfully rebranded in the past. If you’re considering a rebrand, keep reading to learn how to rebrand a company, plus examples of other brands who’ve successfully rebranded their website, name, logo, or entire company mission, and purpose.
Okay, now that we know what rebranding is, let’s make sure you have the right reasons to rebrand.
The Right (and Wrong) Reasons to Rebrand
Rebrands are complicated and carry big risks.
Even big brands aren’t immune — just look at Uber. After redesigning its logo, 44% of people were unsure of what Uber’s logo represented. 
Ultimately, knowing the risks of rebranding can help you determine whether or not you’re going into a rebrand for the right reasons.
If you’re looking at rebranding your business because sales have been slow or brand awareness efforts don’t seem to be paying off, you might want to reconsider — these issues can potentially be solved by creating a new marketing strategy or conducting market research to identify the underlying cause.

But if you’re considering a rebrand because your company’s vision, mission, values, and market are no longer reflected in your brand, then a rebrand might be the right decision.

There are a few other major reasons you might consider a rebrand, including:
New locations
You might need to refresh your brand if you’re expanding to international markets that won’t identify with your current logo, messaging, etc.
Market repositioning
Brands are designed to connect companies with their customers, so if you reposition your business to target a completely new customer profile — whether through product, place, price, or promotion — your brand will need to follow suit.

New philosophy

Your business’s mission, vision, and values should govern every decision you make — including brand decisions. If your MVV are shifting and pivoting the direction of your business along with them, you’ll need to reevaluate your brand.
Mergers and acquisitions
When two companies come together, two brands come together, as well. If your company was acquired or joined with another company, you can’t just let both brands battle it out. Finding a new brand that reflects the new entity will prevent confusion and build trust.
Additionally, here are a few reasons not to rebrand: 
Boredom
Too often, people consider a rebrand because they’re sick of seeing the same logo and slogan every day. When you’re starting to feel restless with your brand, remember that your customers (who see it much less frequently) might love that signature color you’ve come to loathe.
Covering up a crisis
Whether you’re working against persistent internal issues or fending off bad press, a rebrand isn’t the answer. Most consumers and employees are smart enough to see right through your rebrand and recognize it for what it is — a cover-up.
Impact and ego
For new managers, a rebrand might seem like the fastest way to make your mark. But most new managers aren’t implementing the kind of institutional change that justifies a rebrand. More often than not, new leadership that insists on a rebrand is doing it more for themselves than the company.
Looking for attention
Maybe sales have been floundering, or perhaps brand awareness efforts aren’t picking up, but either way, jumping into a rebrand is the wrong move. At best, you’ll generate some short-term buzz, without the sales and marketing strategy to sustain it. At worst, you’ll lose whatever brand recognition you had and set back your sales and marketing efforts.
If you’ve determined a rebrand is still the right choice for you, keep reading to learn how to devise a rebranding strategy.

Rebranding Strategies
1. Change your logo.
One of the main strategies of rebranding is changing your logo. Using a new logo will let your customers know that your brand’s identity is different. You can make it sleeker, use different colors, etc. The main reason to change your logo is so it matches with the new identity that you’re marketing with the rebrand.
2. Shift brand positioning.
After changing your brand logo, it’s important to also shift your brand positioning. You can’t just change your colors and logo and call it a day. The content that you’re marketing needs to communicate a certain message, whether that’s your mission, values, or vision. Shifting your brand positioning will let your customers know what your new mission, values, or vision is.
3. Create new ads.
Once you know what your logo and messaging will sound like, it’s time to create new advertisements and content with this messaging in mind. These ads should clearly communicate the changes to your brand and what they mean for customers. This can help you draw in a new demographic and reach larger audiences.
4. Change your brand’s voice.
Finally, when it’s time to rebrand, you’ll want to change the brand’s voice. Your brand’s voice is the perspective that you write all your marketing content from. Your voice is either formal, causual, witty, etc. If you’re rebranding, it makes sense to change your brand’s voice and announce your rebrand in your new tone of voice.
Now, let’s remember that bot all rebrands are created equal, so let’s first consider whether a partial or total rebrand is the best option for your business.
Partial vs. Total Rebrand
The more established your business and brand are, the more you have to lose from a rebrand.
If your business is more mature, a partial rebrand can help you retain the brand loyalty you’ve built, while refreshing your image to keep up with changing times.

Think of a partial rebrand as an adjustment focused on your visual brand identity to suit new offerings or markets — as opposed to a complete identity crisis.

That’s not to say that a partial rebrand can’t be effective. Just look at Old Spice. The men’s deodorant company redefined its place in the market and has seen massive growth every year since repositioning the brand — all while retaining what made Old Spice cool in the first place.
However, if you’re undergoing a complete identity shift and your company’s mission, vision, and values are changing, a total rebrand might be in order. This option is typically suited to situations like mergers, product overhauls, and other similarly foundational shifts.
Here, everything is on the table — from your name to your purpose, your market, or your brand identity.
If a partial rebrand is a quick touch-up, the total rebrand is a complete makeover.
Once you’ve determined whether you need a partial or total rebrand, take a look at the following five steps you’ll want to implement to successfully rebrand.
1. Reestablish your brand’s audience and market.
After extensive market research, including focus groups and analyzing the data, you’ve noticed something startling — your customers (or competitors) aren’t who you thought they were.
Maybe it’s a demographic with which you never thought you’d engage. Alternatively, maybe there’s a new competitor on the market and its products or services are directly competing with yours.
And you have the data to prove it.
Take a look at who’s actually buying from you — and who they’re buying from, instead of you. Comparing this against your initial target market and audience might reveal some stark differences.
Once you’ve established your actual market and audience, you’re ready to start rebranding your company to connect with your customers (and outsmart your competitors).
2. Redefine your company’s vision, mission, and values.
What are you doing? How are you doing it? Why are you doing it?
When you’re re-evaluating your vision, mission, and values during a rebrand, these are the three questions you’ll need to ask yourself. While it’s easy to take your messaging foundations for granted, they can change as a company grows.

New products, priorities, services, or stakeholders can completely undo what once seemed like a given.

Here are a few major components of your company you’ll want to analyze to decide which part(s) of your company need a little TLC.
Vision
This is a big one. Vision acts as the North Star for every action your company undertakes, so it’s critical you have a firm understanding of your vision before moving forward — additionally, perhaps over time your vision has changed. That’s okay, but it’s vital you redefine your vision as quickly as possible to ensure all your employees are making decisions with that vision in mind.
When you’re rebranding, company vision will affect everything from your website redesign to your hiring process.
Mission
If vision is your what, mission is your how. Maybe you’re still going in the same direction, but the way you’re getting there has changed. Ultimately, your mission is your company’s roadmap.
When your mission changes, your messaging needs to change as well — making it just as crucial as vision during a rebrand.
For instance, Sweetgreen’s mission statement is “To inspire healthier communities by connecting people to real food.” This motto will help define everything about Sweetgreen’s brand, from the images they use in advertisements to the language they use in press releases.
Values
Your values act as the why behind your brand. They’re why you’re working towards your vision, and why you’re dedicated to your mission.
But, as brands expand and change, some of their founding values might become unsustainable. If you can’t support your old values or you’ve come to prioritize new ones, you’ll need to update them to reflect what your company actually values today.
Brand Voice
As your vision, mission, and values change while rebranding, the way you convey these aspects of your company will also have to change. The vocabulary, tone, and voice you use for your brand have to match your message. So, if what you’re saying is changing, how you’re saying it will need to change, as well.
3. Rename your company during a rebrand.
Changing names is a big undertaking, one that can cost you brand recognition and organic search traffic in one fell swoop. So, if you’re renaming your company as part of your rebrand, make sure you have a plan for recovery as part of your post-rebrand strategy.
On the whole, if your name still fits, your best course of action is to keep it. But if your current name is a mismatch for your company identity, it might be time to go back to the drawing board. To help make that drawing board a little less daunting, here are some starter ideas for the renaming process:

Make a new word
Use an old word in new ways
Say what you do (literally)
Modify a word’s spelling
Add a prefix or suffix
Look to other languages
Bring two words together
Create an acronym
Use a location

If you’re revisiting your name while rebranding, focus on alignment with your brand’s vision, mission, and values — more than just what sounds good. That way, your new name has a better chance of supporting your long-term growth and goals.
4. Reconsider your brand’s slogan.
A good slogan is catchy and captures your company’s mission and vision. It’s your company’s purpose, condensed. Unlike changing names, changing slogans is a little easier for your marketing efforts. But like changing names, you should still consider it carefully.
First, it’s critical you ask yourself, why do you really want to change your slogan?
It’s easy to fall into the trap of hating your slogan because you’ve heard it so many times. But it’s that same repetition that builds brand recognition. Even though you might have gotten sick of your slogan after seeing it constantly, your customers might love it.
If you’re on the fence, you can hold focus groups to see if the slogan is really resonating. If it isn’t, you can get some new ideas for slogans with these starting points:

Make a claim
Get metaphorical
Use poetic language
Provide instructions
Leverage labels
Compliment customers

5. Rebuild your brand identity.
The tangible elements you use to communicate your brand might have been in play for a few years by the time you start considering a rebrand. This means you’ve likely had plenty of time to reconsider their strengths and weaknesses before replacing them.
You might want to redesign your logo, use new colors in your brand material, or even create new brand guidelines. Here are a few common changes you might make as part of your rebranding strategy:
Your Logo
Maybe you loved your logo when you first started your company, but you’re finding your customers never really seemed to “get it”. Alternatively, perhaps your logo needs a refresh to reflect the other major changes you’ve made internally.
If you’re looking to do a logo redesign, going back to the basics of what makes a good logo will help you to get it right this time.
Stay simple. Jamming as much symbolism as possible into a logo generally doesn’t work out too well. But that’s a hard truth for young companies who are still trying to prove themselves. Now that you’re more established, show your confidence with a simple logo.
Make an impact. Maybe you went the opposite route in your original logo design and were too afraid to be bold, so you stuck with something safe. Your logo isn’t worth much if people can’t remember it, so when you’re redesigning your logo, don’t settle for something that won’t stand out.
Be adaptable. One thing you might have learned with your first logo is its limitations. Now that you know what shapes or styles might not be as versatile for the channels your business actually uses, bear those in mind during the redesign.
Aim for appropriate. As companies mature and get to know their customers better, a logo that might have made sense at launch could now be considered completely wrong for that company’s target market.
Look to the long term. As fun as rebrands might seem, you don’t want to do this every year, so really look at your vision, mission, values, and purpose and consider whether this new logo can support them in the long run.
Maintain through-lines. Like your name, your logo is one of your brand’s most memorable components. When you’re rebranding, avoid losing too much brand recognition by trying to maintain the parts of your old logo that worked. If you can maintain a sense of continuity, you’ll be able to carry over some of the brand recognition your old logo initially had.
If we look at a few logo redesigns from 2019, we can see this process in action. Take Zara and The Knot, for example, two companies that changed their logos in the last few years:

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In these brand updates, elements of the old brand carry through. Zara kept its bold, black lettering, but pushed the kerning tighter and switched one Serif font for another. The Knot, on the other hand, stayed in the same typography family with a Script font, but swapped blue for orange in their color scheme.
Choosing Your New Color Palette
Color can have a huge impact on your brand — in fact, some colors are now synonymous with the brands that use them, like McDonald’s yellow. But choosing the right color can be difficult, and as your company develops, your color might need a brush up.
Looking at your brand colors with fresh eyes using color psychology and competitor research can help you evaluate whether they’re working with (or against) the brand image you’re looking to project.
Additionally, now that you’ve been working with your color(s) for a while, you may have noticed that the way your colors show up on-screen vs. in-print isn’t consistent. When considering colors during your rebrand, check to ensure the color looks the same on a variety of brand materials.
Typography
Like your color, your original font may have shown up differently in practice than in theory. When you’re reevaluating fonts, pay close attention to what worked and what didn’t with your old font, along with any difficulties you had — like accessing the font for web design or PowerPoints.
You might also want to consider whether your font is consistent with any markets or messages uncovered while rebranding. If your customers are more mature than you initially expected, that super hip Sans Serif font might be better off as a more traditional Serif font. After all, the medium is the message.
And now that you know your marketing channels, you’ll be able to make more educated decisions on weight and cuts — like which fonts show up well, and which leave your words looking wonky.
Shapes and Imagery Revisited
Like your logo, color palette, and typography, your imagery and shapes play a vital role in your brand identity. If you’re changing any of your brand’s other visual elements, it’s worth reconsidering your imagery and shapes to keep everything cohesive after you’ve rebranded.
But it’s not enough for your rebrand to look cohesive — it needs to support the core messages of your brand, as well. At every step in the branding design process, make sure the what, how, and why behind your brand are also behind your new brand identity.
Building New Brand Guidelines
If you’re going to go through all the trouble of creating a new brand identity for your business, you better make sure you use it correctly. Having (and actually using) brand guidelines will help you keep your brand consistent after the transition.
Brand guidelines are especially critical for logos. Logo guidelines are designed to make it as easy as possible for customers to see, recognize, and remember your logo — making up for any lost familiarity that comes with a rebrand.
Here are a few elements to consider when writing your logo guidelines:

Logo elements. What visual elements make up your logo? When and how are each of them used?

Color variations. What does the colored version of your logo look like? What about black and white? When are each of these used?

Clear space. Also called padding, this is the space around your logo that prevents overlap or obscuring. Aim for at least 10% of width at all times.

Unacceptable uses. What can never be done to your logo? What color variations, rotations, scaling, etc. do you want to avoid?

You’ll want to have your guidelines on hand if you’re doing a website redesign, creating a rebrand campaign, or creating other marketing materials.
6. Track brand sentiment along the way.
When you’re designing all the new elements to your rebrand, it’s important to get feedback from customers. You can conduct focus groups and see if the new branding images and messages communicate your new mission, value, and vision. If you don’t get positive feedback, it might be time to go back to the drawing board.
One of the most crucial steps in rebranding is tracking brand sentiment before, during, and after a rebrand launch. You can look at brand sentiment before a rebrand and see what customers feel negatively about. With this in mind, you can conduct your rebrand strategically, adding new messaging that aligns with your audience.
After you’ve evaluated the feedback before a rebrand, and tested your new rebranding elements in a focus group, it’s time to launch your rebrand.
7. Plan a successful launch.
Launching a rebrand isn’t as simple as changing the colors, fonts, or logo on your site. A rebrand is about communicating your new message: What is your new mission, values, and vision? To communicate this, it’s important to plan a successful rebranding launch.
This can include posting advertisements online, in print, on TV, on radio, etc. Then, you’ll want to announce the launch of your rebrand with a press release on your site and a post on your social media channels that says exactly why your company needed a rebrand and what this rebrand means for the future of your company.
At its best, a rebrand can act as an incentive to remain consistent and on-brand in all your marketing efforts moving forward — something that can slip in businesses over time.
Now that we’ve explored various aspects of rebranding, let’s take a look at examples for further inspiration.
1. Chobani rebrand

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In 2017, Chobani made a few major changes to their brand in an effort to stand out in the crowded, oftentimes homogeneous-looking yogurt industry.
First, they shifted their identity from a yogurt company to a “food-focused wellness company” with a new mission — “Fighting for happily ever after.” Under their Impact page on their website, you’ll see the statement, “The most important thing we make is a difference. It’s always been about more than yogurt.” You’ll see this focus on health and nutrition in their advertisements and their new products, including Less Sugar Greek Yogurt and Chobani Flip Yogurt.
Additionally, as shown above, Chobani changed its packaging — instead of using plain white cups with fruit photos, they redesigned their product packaging using 19th century American folk art with a variety of colors. Their rebrand helps their products stand out from the other plain white yogurt packages on the shelves.
2. Candid rebrand

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Rebranding is often a good decision after two companies merge.
For instance, Foundation Center was the largest source of information about philanthropy globally, and GuideStar was the largest source of information on U.S. nonprofit organizations. In 2019, the two organizations joined forces to become Candid, enabling both foundations to enhance the services they offer to millions of people who rely on them to help make the world a better place.
If you visit Foundation Center’s website, you’ll see a message that reads: “Foundation Center and GuideStar are now Candid. You were redirected to candid.org from foundationcenter.org.” The old GuideStar website is still visible and usable, but there is an explanation of the new corporate entity and a link to Candid’s page.
Candid, the new merged foundation, now boasts a sleek website with a mission statement, guiding principles, and a vision that combines the best of both Foundation Center and GuideStar.

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3. Dropbox rebrand

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In 2007, Dropbox launched as a file-storage and file-sharing web service — but in 2017, the company now wants you to think of them as ” the connective tissue for teams and businesses of all sizes”. Instead of just a file-sharing service, Dropbox is now a full suite with APIs, tools, and integrations.
Along with the internal mission shift, Dropbox refreshed its logo to reflect its new products. In a statement regarding the new logo, the Dropbox design team said, “Our old logo was a blue box that implied, ‘Dropbox is a great place to store stuff.’ The new one is cleaner and simpler. And we’ve evolved it from a literal box, to a collection of surfaces to show that Dropbox is an open platform, and a place for creation.”
4. Pet Food Experts rebrand

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Pet Food Experts has a full timeline on their website that reflects all company changes since 1936, when the company first opened.
Among the most notable are the company’s name change from “Rumford Pet Center” to “Pet Food Experts” (in an “effort to establish itself separately from the Rumford Aquarium”), and the logo redesign in 2008. The 80-year-old company has grown significantly over the years, and is now a major distributor of pet products from coast-to-coast.
To reflect their change and growth over the years, the company has taken numerous successful steps to consistently refresh their brand to reflect their products and values as they change over time.
5. Dunkin’ Donuts rebrand

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Beginning in January 2019, Dunkin’ Donuts, first introduced in 1973, adopted a new logo that dropped the “Donuts” on their name — now, signs, logos, and marketing materials simply read, “Dunkin’”.
The new name signifies the companies focus on coffee — Tony Weisman, Chief Marketing Officer, Dunkin’ U.S., said in a statement, “By simplifying and modernizing our name, while still paying homage to our heritage, we have an opportunity to create an incredible new energy for Dunkin’, both in and outside our stores.”
Despite the change in name, Dunkin’ continues to use the same pink and organic colors and iconic font to ensure long-time customers continue to recognize the brand.
6. IHOP rebrand

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As you’ve likely gathered from this post, a rebrand is a fantastic opportunity to refresh your public perception and get consumers’ attention.
Which is exactly why IHOP used a rebrand as a marketing ploy to get people to pay attention to their new product — burgers. In 2018, IHOP announced that it was rebranding as IHOb, the International House of Burgers. It began using IHOb on social media, its website, and in-store promotions.
Eventually, IHOP admitted its rebranding was a joke to get people to pay attention to their new line of ground Angus ground beef burgers. Their “joke rebrand” was a smart play — it incentivized people to either vehemently fight for the importance of IHOP’s most important product (pancakes), while also calling attention to their other offerings.
IHOP has since switched back to its original name and logo.
Bad Rebranding Examples
1. Comcast
Comcast has been known to have the most hated customer services in the United States. So the company decided to change their name and rebrand their logo to xfinity.
However, the company didn’t change its history of bad practices. Superficial updates like a name change and logo change won’t help your company if brand identity and brand reputation doesn’t follow.
While the company could have worked on improving customer support, they spent money on a cosmetic upgrade, which didn’t help them earn the trust back from their customers. To earn your customers trust, you have to listen to them. You can’t just rebrand your visual identity while making no substantitve changes.

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2. Gap
Remember that list of reasons to rebrand and reasons not to rebrand above? Gap made the mistake of rebranding for seemingly no reason. The company changed their logo and caused outrage among its customers. Only 6 days later, the company went back to the old design.
The new logo didn’t communicate anything about the brand, and in fact took the personality out of the brand’s logo. Additionally, customers had an emotional bond with their logo, and changing it for no reason caused upset customers.

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3. Weight Watchers
Weight Watchers changed its name and logo a few years ago to shift its focus from weight-loss to wellness. However, with their new name “Wellness that Works,” customers weren’t sure if the product offerings were going to change.
The shift from weight-loss company to wellness company left customers confused. And this wasn’t a bad idea for a rebrand, however it’s important that your product offerings either change with your new identity or don’t rebrand at all.
Changing the name of your company shouldn’t confuse customers — it should make your offerings more clear.
Additionally, if you’re going to shift your name and product offerings, it’s important to communicate that message clearly. This rebrand failed because the message wasn’t clearly communicated and customers were confused.

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Are You Ready to Rebrand?
Now that you know everything a rebrand entails, it’s time to consider if and how you want to rebrand your own business. Whether you end up going with a logo redesign, a website redesign, some refreshed messaging or a complete brand overhaul, these steps can help you to consider your best strategy for building a brand that gets it right this time.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in August 2014 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Google ranking factors are constantly changing, but links remain one of the most critical factors used by search engines.
If you want your website’s pages to rank in search and attract tons of organic traffic, you will undoubtedly need links.
Good links are like “votes”, which help search engines identify the best content to show for specific search queries.
There’re tons of link building strategies you can try depending on your goals and needs. With some strategies, you can get those important “votes” and increase referral traffic and gain more visibility for your company.
At Hunter, we’re constantly improving our link profile and getting more visibility for our brand. We’ve tested tons of link-building strategies, and there’s one that showed us the best results — link building via “best” listicles.
In less than three months, we got 96 new links from 54 domains, were mentioned in 33 new product listings, and upgraded our positions in 17 listings.
How did we do it? Read this guide, and I’ll show you how we implemented this strategy step-by-step.

First things first: What are “listicles”?
A “listicle” is an article made of a list — typically with some kind of extra detail below each item. This is a popular format to review products or services as it’s easy to skim to find important information.
Titles tell you what to expect (e.g., each title could be the name of the product or service), and each paragraph/chapter has a similar format, making it easy to compare many items quickly.
Here is an excellent example of a listicle created by HubSpot: Sales Prospecting: 26 Tips, Techniques & Tools to Succeed.
This is a review of the best techniques and tools for prospecting, which has a similar structure and approach to each product.
Why is it essential for you to get featured in listicles?
Listicles are powerful tools for product comparison and independent views on specific products or services.
Just imagine: You’re new to sales prospecting. You barely know anything about the popular tools on the market, and you need to find the best one for your team. To get some information about the topic you don’t know much about, you typically go to Google and type in something like “best prospecting tools” or “best sales prospecting tools review.”
You click “search” and stumble upon a similar search result page which consists mainly of listicles:

At Hunter, our key product is related to sales prospecting, and we wanted to be present in many listicles (especially those that generate high organic traffic).
By appearing in those listicles, you can get:

More visibility for your brand: Just imagine someone searching for “best [your product/service].” You appear number one on Google in the first independent listicle and are mentioned in all top positions in the listicles below.

New backlinks: By appearing in those listicles in 95% of cases, you’ll get one or a couple of backlinks to your website (only in rare instances do editors not include external links).

There are also cases when you can be already featured in the listicle of “10 Best [Tools/Products] for XYZ” as the #10 item that gets minimum visibility. So, your goal might also be to improve your position in that listicle.
Now, let’s jump right into the exact steps and strategies that will help you to get dozens of mentions in the listicles in no time.
Step 1: Collect prospects for outreach.
The first step for this strategy would be to find all prospects relevant to outreach for the mention in the listicle.
There are two approaches to do it: manual and automated.
Using a manual approach, you Google all searches related to your product or service with modifiers.
For example: “best + [your product category]” or “top tools for [your product category].”
The most popular modifiers to find listicles would be:

Best
List
Tools
Top
Software
Review
Free
Toolkit
Services

You can use these modifiers in combination with your product or service category.
At Hunter, we created a simple spreadsheet that listed everything relevant to our product terms and a list of modifiers that can be used with those terms. Then, the most successful combinations like “best tools for email lookup” or “best free software to verify email” generate.

You might prefer using an automated approach, which allows you to find more prospects in less time (compared to Googling it all manually).
You need an Ahrefs account for it. If you don’t have a subscription, there is a $7/week trial, so that might be enough for you to find all of the prospects you need.
In Ahrefs, enter your keywords into the Keywords Explorer and export the results in CSV.
Repeat it for all of the keyword ideas you generate with your spreadsheet. Then, merge all CSVs you collected with Ahrefs in one.
In the merged CSV, make sure to remove duplicates (from this point, I suggest using Google Sheets). Here, you can find a quick guide on how to remove them.
After that, it’s time to do some manual work, which is a bit time-consuming but very rewarding in the end.
Open each URL you exported. Remove the irrelevant ones or those that are not listicles. Add a sequence tag for each email. You’ll use it to personalize outreach.
In our case, we used four key tags:

Hunter not mentioned (our product is not mentioned in the listicle)
Hunter mentioned below (our product’s position is below #1 in the listicle)
Hunter mentioned #1 with no link (no need to pitch the product, only ask to add a backlink)
Hunter mentioned #1 with a link (no need to contact this website)

Besides adding a sequence tag for each relevant listicle, you’ll want to add a sentence of personalization to your spreadsheet that you’ll be using in your automated outreach sequence as an icebreaker.
This is what it looked like in our spreadsheet:

I recommend exporting from Ahrefs monthly traffic and domain authority of the URLs you collected. That helps to set your team’s priorities better. You should focus on the pages with the highest traffic and highest domain authority.
Once you complete this step, it’s time to find decision-makers in those companies and their emails.
As we noticed, the highest response rate for the listicle outreach was from the blog editors and content managers, so I recommend focusing on these positions. In small companies, it could be marketers and business owners.
You can easily find the full name of the decision-maker from a specific company just by checking the company’s LinkedIn profile.
Once you know the full name of your prospect, enter it in Email Finder along with a company domain. You’ll get a verified email address in seconds. With Email Finder, you can search 25 emails/mo for free.
Another quick way to find the email addresses of the listicle authors is to use Author Finder. If you install a free Chrome extension, you can simplify the email lookup process even more.
Just open the listicle URL and click on the extension icon. You’ll get the email address of the listicle author.
Add columns to your spreadsheet, such as the prospect’s name, company, and email address. You’ll use it later to personalize outreach.
Note: If you find emails with other providers, verify them. Using unverified emails may cause bounces, which can hurt your deliverability rates.
Step 2: Prepare email copy.
Now, it’s time to prepare an email copy for your cold outreach.
It’s essential to segment your outreach sequences, personalize your emails on a high level, and provide maximum value to your prospects.
For our outreach, we created three sequences:

Those who didn’t mention our product
Those who mentioned our product but below other products
And for those who mentioned but didn’t link back to us

Here is an example of the email we sent for those listicles that mentioned other products from our niche but didn’t mention us.

There’re a few critical things to include in your email copy when reaching out to listicles:

Short and catchy subject line. No one will ever respond to you if no one opens your email in the first place. Thus, the first thing to do while working on a new cold email campaign is to create the perfect subject line. Keep it short and catchy so your reader isn’t overwhelmed or lost. Instead, make them intrigued and engaged.

Quick intro and catchy opening line. After the subject line, the opening line is the second most crucial sentence in your cold email. Because you wrote a successful subject line and made prospects open your email, the next step would be to make them read your message. If you start with something blurry, dull, and generic, chances are you’ll never get a response from your prospect. At this step, it’s essential to add a personalized icebreaker. (This is the reason we added this personalized line about each article to our Google Sheet earlier.)

Personalize at scale with custom attributes. When you send dozens of emails simultaneously, it might be time-consuming to do it all manually. Here is where cold outreach automation tools come in handy. Create a spreadsheet with all data to personalize your emails and then add custom attributes to email copy. Your emails will be personalized on a high level automatically, and you don’t need to do tons of manual work.

Provide value in return. You can’t ask a stranger for an offer and not give anything in return. Offer them the option to participate in your affiliate program, or help with the content update or promotion. Think of anything that can bring them value.

End your email with a powerful CTA. It’s essential how you end your emails since it directly impacts the response rate. Ask an open-ended question that requires no time to get an answer. Make it clear and straightforward.

Step 3: Set-up outreach campaign.
Cold outreach is a time-consuming process, but when you find the right approach to automate it, you won’t need to spend that much time on your campaigns.
For our listicle outreach campaign, we knew two things we planned to do:

We would need to send highly-personalized emails to our prospects.
We would need to send follow-ups as they significantly increase the response rate (typically).

When you have hundreds or even thousands of prospects to outreach, the thing that you don’t want to do is to write every single email from scratch.
Also, you might find it overwhelming to remember when you need to follow up with every prospect. When you have more than one follow-up for each, doing it manually may sound like a nightmare.
So, this is the point where you need to use intelligent automation.
For the listicle outreach, we used Campaigns, a free tool that helps to automate cold emailing directly from your Gmail account.
As I mentioned above, we used custom attributes to automate personalization at scale. You need to spend time collecting all data for personalization before the outreach. Then, you just import it from your spreadsheet and have highly-personalized emails in a single click.
Here is how the final email we sent looked: personal and relevant to the prospect.

We also added two automated follow-ups to the sequence that used the personalization from the spreadsheet. The rule was to send the 1st follow-up in three days to all those who didn’t respond, and a 2nd in six days after the initial email.

When scheduling cold follow-ups, it’s essential to:

Not schedule too many follow-ups. Our crucial rule is to focus on writing irresistible emails instead of adding too many follow-ups. So we recommend limiting it to three follow-ups for your cold email campaigns. If you are sending too many follow-ups to someone who’s never heard about you, you may seem like an annoying person and damage your brand reputation.

Use the same thread for all emails. This way, prospects quickly get reminded about the offer from the previous email. Moreover, you can use follow-ups to continue telling the story or offering additional benefits, in this case.

Keep in mind a sending schedule. According to many studies, when you automate outreach, you’ll want to make sure you exclude from your sending window weekends and public holidays.

Step 4: Be proactive in negotiations.
Your cold outreach campaign doesn’t end when you hit “send.” Your negotiation skills and proactivity determine how successful your outreach campaign will be.
In the perfect world, each answer you receive to the listicle outreach campaign looks like this:

The thing is that we don’t live in a perfect world, and most of the prospects will try to get more benefits for you in exchange for a link, product mention, or position upgrade. So, be ready to negotiate!
Here are a few tips that helped us to get the most mentions after receiving answers from our prospects:

Be fast and provide what you offered right away. It doesn’t mean you have to skip sleep and update your inbox regularly. Just answer as soon as you see an email.

Be flexible. If you contacted a DR 90 website and the traffic to the desired listicle is 1K sessions, be flexible in negotiations. You don’t want to lose a “big fish.”

Do something for them. You get more chances of being featured if you provide even more value in return. Offer to share content after the update or give free consultation on something you’re good at.

Don’t forget to follow up. Make sure to schedule manual follow-ups for those who showed interest. Sometimes, people are just busy at the moment you send an email or can forget about the conversation. It’s OK. Just make sure to follow up regarding your conversation gently. You can use Gmail functionality to snooze conversations and get a reminder to follow up on a specific date.

Track all negotiations. Update your spreadsheet regularly and keep track of all negotiations. If you have too many prospects to handle, use a CRM.

Link building via “best” listicles is an effective strategy that can help to get tons of mentions and links for your business — if you do it right.
Make sure to spend enough time researching your potential prospects and collecting in-depth information on them.
Prepare email sequences that are unique and relevant to each segment, and add ice breakers and information pertinent to bring value to your prospects.
Automate routine work by using tools for cold outreach, and at the same time, spend as much time as needed on negotiations.
Hopefully, you’ll begin to see powerful results from your listicle outreach almost immediately.